Vietnam and the Philippines have agreed to strengthen maritime cooperation in the South China Sea. Digging deeper, however, the two countries are taking distinct approaches in countering the Chinese coercion in the maritime area.
Economy
Chinese-funded investments into Laos and Cambodia have transformed the geo-economic landscape in Vietnam’s immediate neighbourhood. This has caused Hanoi to give China’s Belt and Road Initiative another look.
Politics
Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is actively promoting “Vietnamese bamboo diplomacy” as his foreign policy legacy. The concept is not altogether new but it has been riding upon Trong’s political ascendency and Vietnam’s geopolitical fortunes.
Politics
India is seizing strategic opportunities to emerge as a new global power, but its influence in Southeast Asia is not keenly felt yet. Recent diplomatic accolades that India has achieved with ASEAN, appear to hold more significance in form than in substance. India’s lagging influence in Southeast Asia is also closely associated with its limited economic engagement and protectionist policies towards the region.
Politics
Southeast Asian countries appear to have unanimously supported China’s Global Development Initiative in the hope that it will contribute towards addressing their development deficits and that China will up its economic game more broadly in the region. But a closer examination shows that other considerations continue to worry them.
Politics
In the event of hostilities in the Taiwan Strait, Southeast Asian countries will face a difficult dilemma. Their latitude for manoeuvre will be limited, particularly as the Philippines, a key ASEAN member and a US treaty ally, prepares to provide base access to the US in such a contingency.
Politics
The handshakes and smiles in Bali have triggered some optimism about Sino-US relations going forward. Yet the slight uptick in Sino-US relations post-Bali might well be short-lived, given the superpowers’ underlying structural competition and deep mutual distrust.
Politics
China is crafting “wonderful stories” about its upstream dams in the Mekong. But the overall thrust of the narrative glosses over the more controversial aspects of dam building. The cure to the dying Mekong must begin with clinical analysis and honest exchange among riparian states. ISEAS researcher Hoang Thi Ha says China’s unilaterally imposed narratives are part of the problem, not the remedy.
Politics
China’s “Asian way” is an all-embracing idea and a coded language to discredit other countries’ actions that are deemed harmful to China’s strategic interests. A simple version is: the West seeks to divide through confrontation and exclusion, while the “Asian way” seeks to unite through dialogue and inclusion. ISEAS academic Hoang Thi Ha examines the validity of that narrative.